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the game blog: this culture of conning is the real blight on the game, not the fact a referee sent off the wrong player by mistake

You have to be mad to be a referee in football. I know this because two
friends have stopped officiating at junior levels in recent times. I know it
because I was at the under-13s match this season when the referee walked
off. She’d had enough of the abuse from the parents.

The on-going debate about refereeing standards misses the point. Yes, referees
have made some pretty poor errors in recent months, but they have never had
it so hard in this era of institutionalised dishonesty.